The Vilnius province with a population of more than one and a half million people, and once part of the Russian Empire as an independent administrative-territorial unit, has become the property of history. Today, its territory is divided between Belarus and Lithuania, and the main city of Vilnius, changing its name, has become Vilnius known to all.
The province formed by decree of Catherine II
After the Polish uprising led by Kosciuszko ended in defeat in 1794, the Polish-Lithuanian state was finally liquidated. A year later, Russia, Austria and Prussia signed an agreement according to which each of them transferred part of the territory of the rebellious Commonwealth. This act went down in history under the name of the Third Partition of Poland.
According to the signed document, the Russian Empire took possession of the land located east of the Bug and limited by the Grodno-Nemirov line, whose total area was one hundred twenty thousand square kilometers. A year later, by the command of the Empress Catherine II, the Vilna province was formed on them, the center of which was the city of Vilnius (present-day Vilnius).
Subsequent transformations of the Vilnius province
Since its inception, the province has been divided into eleven counties: Shavelsky, Troksky, Rossiensky, Kovensky, Vilkomirsky, Braslavsky, Upitsky, Telshevsky, Oshmyany, Zavileysky and Vilensky. However, Paul I, who took the throne in 1796, began his reign with a number of administrative and territorial reforms, affecting, in particular, the newly formed province.
According to his decree dated December 12, 1796, the Vilnius province was merged with the Slonim governorate, as a result of which the Lithuanian province appeared on the map of Russia of those years, the administrative center of which was still the city of Vilna.
This newly established administrative-territorial entity lasted only five years and after the accession to the throne of Alexander I was again divided into previously independent territories. The former Slonim province has since become known as Grodno, and Vilenskaya until the year 1840 was called Lithuanian-Vilensky.
The last pre-revolutionary redistribution of the province
The last time the Vilnius province of the Russian Empire changed its outline on the map in 1843, during the reign of Nicholas I. The seven districts belonging to it earlier - Novoaleksandrovsky, Vilkomirsky, Shavelsky, Kovensky, Rossiensky, Telshevsky and Panevezhsky - were separated into an independent subject of the federation and formed the Kovensky the province.
Thus, its size was significantly reduced, and until its abolition in 1920, the Vilnius province consisted of the Trok, Oshmyany, Sventsyansky and Vilensky districts. Disney, Vileika, and also Lida counties belonging earlier to the Grodno and Minsk provinces were also attached to them.
The number and composition of the population of the province
In 1897, a general census was carried out in Russia, the results of which make it possible to judge who the Vilnius province was inhabited in those years. The list of settlements in which the registration of residents was carried out covers its entire territory at the end of the 19th century.
According to the surviving data, the total population was 1,591,308 people, of whom Belarusians made up 52.2%, Lithuanians - 13.7%, Jews - 17.1%, Poles - 12.4% and Russians only 4.7%. The ratio of population groups by their religion is also known. Most of them were Catholics - 58.7%, followed by the Orthodox - 27.8%, Jews, there were about 12.8%. One or something like this looked in the last decades of the XIX century, Vilna province.
The nobility, as well as a significant part of ordinary citizens living on its territory, did not accept the revolution and during the Civil War they supported the White Guard movement, thereby putting themselves in the position of opponents of the Soviet regime. However, they could not significantly influence the course of history.
The abolition of the province and the division of its territory
In 1920, at the end of the armed conflict between Russia, Belarus, as well as Ukraine on the one hand, and Poland on the other, a peace treaty was concluded. On the basis of this document, signed on March 18, 1921 in Riga, the Vilnius province ceased to exist as an independent administrative-territorial unit.
The last dots over i were placed in October 1939, when, ignoring the opinion of the Belarusian government, the leadership of the Soviet Union, the city of Vilna and Vilnius region were transferred to Lithuania for a period of fifteen years. This agreement also provided for the right to enter the twenty-thousand-strong contingent of Soviet troops into the territory of Lithuania. Since then, having become the capital of the Republic of Lithuania, which later became part of the USSR, the city changed its former name to Vilnius.